‘The Good Wife,’ Season 4, Episode 2, ‘And The Law Won’: TV Recap

Last week, many of you expressed your disappointment/revulsion regarding Kalinda’s violent relationship with her husband. You aren’t going to be any happier this week, as the bizarre sexual fireworks continue.

Not that we should be all that surprised: Kalinda’s relationships have always been both stormy and curiously cold-hearted. The problem with this long-awaited marital back story is that it cries out for a back story of its own. Just what made Kalinda the strange, emotionally wary, half-S, half-M creature that she is?

Even more annoying, she’s starting to fall down on the job, disappearing with her bruiser mate, preoccupied when she does show up. Would a top-notch law firm really put up with this conduct? Especially when Lockhart, Gardner, struggling to get out from under massive debt, is cutting jobs.

The good news this episode is that Will’s back before the bar. His first case: A lawsuit against the city of Chicago involving the death of a young man after a cop shot him with a stun gun during a NATO protest. When a settlement is offered—$800,000—the firm’s newly appointed trustee, Clarke Hayden (a still restrained Nathan Lane), insists they accept. But Will wants to fight for a higher number and Diane backs him up, pointing out it’s the client’s call. “This is how you got into this hole,” Clarke tells them, “placing passion before pragmatism.”

Pragmatic to a fault, Clarke continues to interview the firm’s lawyers to determine who should go. One tags Alicia, because “some partners have issues … the office she’s in is the largest of any fourth year and it’s the only one on the 28th floor.” In contrast, Mrs. Florrick refuses to say anything negative about anyone. Whether for this reason or another, she stays standing—and soon replaces her nemesis as Will’s second chair. (“He’s better when he has someone to impress,” Diane says.)

When Will tells Diane that the trustee is forcing them to sell a floor, he notes that she is “curiously becalmed.” Turns out, Di knows their new landlord—moneybags Maddie Hayward (ER’s Maura Tierney, who makes the most of a so far small role)—from their work with Emily’s List. She’ll talk to her.

There’s a creepy scene between Nick and Kalinda in an ice cream shop. “Two years,” he tells her. “I get out and I expect my lovin’ wife to be there…instead you take my money …” “Did it make you cry?” she taunts, and soon he’s grabbing her beneath the counter. “Remember this?” he asks. “I remember you being better at it,” she answers. He then sticks his hand in her ice cream cone. She continues licking.

After Maddie gives a speech at a feminist lunch, Diane approaches her “to discuss relief on the new payment schedule”—only to be dismissed and told to contact Hayward’s underlings. But oddly, Maddie wants to meet Alicia: “Send her.”

Back in court, the deceased’s fiancée testifies that he wasn’t even protesting, just came to see her. Judge Temple, a blowhard obsessed with his Harvard pedigree, is about to adjourn when he is handed a piece of paper. Calling the lawyers to the bench, he tells them a new law allows jurors in civil cases to submit written questions of their own, if the judge approves, and one juror wants to know: Why isn’t the fiancée wearing her engagement ring during the protests?

She fumbles her answer and Alicia soon finds out that the fiancée had in fact broken up with the victim prior to the protest. Will desperately needs Kalinda’s help on this one—who is the juror and where is she/he getting the information?—but the ace investigator does not return his calls. When she finally materializes, he tells her: “This matters. We work for the trustee now and I am out on a limb here.”

Clarke makes another vain attempt to get Alicia to rat out her coworkers: “We’re in an overfull lifeboat…I have to trim Mergers and Acquisitions and I’m asking your opinion.” Then Kalinda goes into Alicia’s office to reveal that Nick is her husband and “he brought his business here because I’m here.” Exhausted but in control, Alicia asks, “Is he dangerous?” When Kalinda says she doesn’t know, Alicia decides to drop the case.

Diane asks Alicia to meet with Maddie, which she does (in a gorgeous, softly tied wine-colored suit). Maddie has no interest in the lease renegotiation but wants to know about Alicia standing by her man and if she agrees with Peter’s political positions. “Enough,” Alicia says.

The court case is going against Will: A second question from a juror asks a medical examiner if there were antidepressants in the victim’s system. Defense attorney Lionel Deerfield (Ed Herrmann) runs with this, suggesting the deceased might have been behaving aggressively from depression, especially if he’d recently experienced such a traumatic event as the breakup of his engagement.

Cary and Kalinda, sitting in court, still can’t figure out which juror has the inside track. In chambers, the judge tells Will to turn over all medical records—even those beyond those originally requested. When Will asks Lionel where he is on the settlement, Lionel smiles and walks away.

Back at the firm, Alicia fires Nick as a client, pleading over-scheduling. He leaves, knocking over a vase in the waiting room. Kalinda stands to the side, grinning smugly. (If he’s really dangerous, why the games?)

There’s a nice bit of detective work from Kalinda (finally!) when she looks at the jurors’ questionnaires and sees one where “children” has a crossed out 3, with 2 written above it. “A common error when a parent has lost a child,” she says. This might be their interrogator.

Not wasting time, trustee Clarke has let all of M&A go, except for one attorney. Diane asks Alicia to call Maddie to follow up on their lease meeting.

But oddly, Maddie turns up at Peter’s campaign stop, announcing that she just met Alicia and she’s thinking of contributing: “I like your wife…you two are separated?”

“Yes,” says Peter.

“No,” says Eli. Then: “They’re trying to work things out.”

“By not sleeping with prostitutes?” she asks. Maddie wants assurances that she won’t be embarrassed if she supports him (she usually only backs female candidates). “I don’t believe people can change.”

“You know what? Neither did I,” Peter counters. “Then I went to prison.”

In court, a doctor testifies to prescribing Elavil to the victim, for anxiety and sleep disorders. Lionel brings up Will’s former case, where he won a judgment against the makers of Elavil because of its suicidal side effects. “Isn’t it possible,” Lionel asks, “that such a person could be driven to commit suicide by cop?”

Now everybody has a question! The jury is fluttering with paper! (And to anybody who has ever been on a jury, doesn’t this seem like a seriously bad idea? I mean, you would be there for centuries.)

Kalinda enters her apartment/safe house to find Nick sitting in the armchair this time, pointing a gun. When she ignores him and goes into the bathroom, he smashes his hand into a mirror. She emerges and starts cleaning up his bleeding hand.

“Why do you hurt me?” he asks. “Shut up,” she answers, and after he says, “I love you. I always will,” she’s back in the saddle again. (Writers! How long are we going to keep this going on?)

Next scene: Those trademark black boots are stepping over protesters to find new evidence. A guy who had been at the NATO protests tells Kalinda that Lockhart, Gardner’s client had been “stickered” by undercover cops, marked with a red circle on his backpack, indicating he would be trouble.

Clarke continues to run names past Alicia, who continues to resist, saying she doesn’t want to be “the arbiter of people’s fates.” He tells her he’s consulting with many people: “You’re hardly an arbiter of anything.” Zing!

Now comes an interesting little exchange where Maddie asks Alicia if she wants to have a drink. “I’m flattered,” Alicia says, but “I’m married.” Maddie says she wasn’t hitting on her; she’s just in need of friends. As we know, so is Alicia, so they make a date.

On the stand, Officer Mallen completely blows it, first testifying that he never saw the red sticker on the victim’s backpack, then mentioning it. (In fact, it wasn’t a sticker; it was a smiley face.) Pretty soon, Will has a $3.5 million settlement.

But Clarke, worrying every penny, wants to know why Alicia dropped Nick as a client. She cites vague irregularities, but he orders her to take him back.

Diane is clearly pissed that Alicia failed to renegotiate the lease, while Maddie is giving to Peter’s campaign. “We have to lose the 27th floor now,” she says.

I wonder where Alicia’s new office will be.

The episode ends on Peter’s campaign bus, everybody smiling, “Midnight Train from Georgia” playing, Alicia barefoot with her legs up on the coffee table. She looks happier and more relaxed than she has in seasons.

More evidence that she’ll return to Peter? Well, at least he isn’t brandishing guns, inflicting bruises and smashing mirrors and vases.

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